Arantxa Rus started her match against Aliaksandra Sasnovich from the first second with a sharp eye. Concentrated and determined, she grabbed her opponents by the throat and did not let her go again until she was leading 6-0. yhe result was a Belarusian in tears. With that, the Netherlands seemed to be heading for the profit of this FedCup duel. After all, the score was already 2-1 in favor of the Netherlands after Bertens win over Aryna Sabalenka. But if one thing has become clear this past weekend, it is that you have only won from Belarus when the last ball is hit. Aliaksandra picked herself up and at the start of the second set, Arantxa was confronted with a completely different opponent. Her hard deep ground strokes got more direction and we also saw the combination of these deep balls with well-placed dropshots. The previous day, she had already had a lot of success with this combination against Bertens – at least in the first set. Paul Haarhuis briefly summarized it in the press conference: Arantxa started with good play and was constantly at this high level throughout the game. Sasnovich actually started the match badly but got better from the second set and at the end of the match she was the best of the two. The set positions underlined this: 6-0; 5-7; 2-6. With the tie of 2-2 after the single games, the double game became decisive for the overall win.
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